going viral, the puking kind…illustrated with crappy pictures™

Last Monday started like any other Monday except the boys were being unruly. More unruly than usual, anyway. This was the beginning of a very long week that I almost couldn’t handle. We were about to go viral. With an intestinal virus. Here is how it all went down…

So I hear them from the kitchen where I’m making breakfast. Yelling. Fighting.

I peek around the corner and discover them using a xylophone mallet and a maraca to hit each other. Because this is what xylophone mallets and maracas are used for when they are being unruly. As clubs.

So I respond the usual way that I do when I catch them using musical instruments as weapons.

What is their deal? I’m getting grumpy. The week is not starting well. Why are they being so crazy? How am I going to handle a full week like this?

And then, several hours later, I see what their deal is.

They are getting sick.

No matter what the virus is, my older son gets a stomach ache and my younger son gets a runny nose. I never know what it is going to morph into. This is the fun part. The waiting game.

And now my mama guilt is in full force for thinking they were acting like little jerks earlier. For not seeing what was really going on. The poor babies are sick!

The nurturing super mama has taken over now.

I’ll do anything for them.

And I’m optimistic. I truly believe that if we just have a mellow day full of cuddles and reading and soup that they will get better before they get worse.

Just a quick 24 hour bug. I can handle this.

It seems to be going well. They don’t seem to be getting worse.

Until the sun goes down.

Nighttime brings out the worst. Always. I dread the nighttime when they are sick.

But I can handle this. I clean it up and comfort him.

I’m in the livingroom walking the baby back and forth. My eldest is asleep on the couch, wanting to be near me. All is quiet and I think we have seen the worst of it.

And then this happens:

And continues to happen. All night.

Nobody sleeps. My husband is in the background, mostly on clean up duty. And thermometer duty. And getting them to drink water duty. He sleeps in between.

Puking. Pooping. Sometimes alternating. Sometimes at the same time.

More puking.

More pooping.

More forcing them to drink water. Temperature taking. Carrying. Walking.

Finally, the sun rises. All is calm. We are laying on the floor, flanked by a roll of paper towels and a puke bucket.

I feel a great sense of relief with the presence of the sun. I know the worst is behind us.

This time, I’m right. They remain terribly ill and grumpy and clingy but the pukefest is mostly over. We lay low all day. They even mostly sleep through the night! Mostly.

Now Wednesday is here and things are looking even better!

Oh, except for me. Once the kids are better I suddenly remember that I too exist on the physical plane and I realize that, wow, I’m super sick. I was so busy tending them that I didn’t even notice that my temperature is 104.

Now I am the type of sick person that would prefer to hide under the covers and sweat it out. Alone. If I were an injured wolf, I’d go off and die alone in the woods. Alone. Alone is the key element here. Alone is what I need to get well. Alone isn’t going to happen.

But I can handle this. I can.

They sense my desire to be alone which makes them cling even more.

But my husband will help.

Only they don’t want him. They want Mama. Only Mama. They still aren’t 100% themselves and are in that “I was just sick so now I’m super clingy and whiny” stage of getting better.

Finally he lures them away from me with promises of playing Candy Land.

Game in progress I retreat to my bed.

This is the first time I’ve wished for a never-ending game of Candy Land.

I don’t get my wish.

They are back. Want to cuddle with me.

The baby wants to nurse. He is still not feeling well. I get it. But I may have to puke or run to the bathroom with explosive diarrhea. Again. So having him attached to my nipple does not feel safe right now. Or convenient. I’m feverish and delirious so imagine that he is draining life out of me.

I just really want to be alone.

But I can handle this.

Husband manages to pry them from me again and this time I get smart and lock the door.

Only they do not like this.

I realize that this might actually be worse than letting them in.

When all is said and done I think I got about an hour total of quiet alone time. Which is pretty good.

Over the next couple days I slowly start to get better.

The boys are back to their highly energetic selves and I try to keep up even though I can barely stand up.

I can handle this though. I can. We are almost in the clear now.

At last, I too am back to myself.

The weekend arrives and with it, health! We are ready for a fun, family-filled weekend. Nobody is sick so we can actually go places! The sun is shining! Yay!

And then…

He gets sick. On the weekend. How very conveinent for him. I try not to be bitter. He really doesn’t have control over the timing. At least I don’t think he does.

So he proceeds to spend an entire day in bed. Alone.

Moaning.

The kids are healthy and stir-crazy so I take them out of the house. All is quiet and peaceful for him. How nice.

And then he proceeds to spend a second day in bed. Alone.

At some point, as usual, he thinks he is dying.

And so I respond the way I always do.

We’ve been down this road before. I can handle this.

I tell him matter-of-factly that he is not dying. He just has the flu.

The same flu, I remind him, that I had while taking care of the kids all week.

This is where he is supposed to have an epiphany of how amazing I am and what a hard week it has been for me and why I’m ever so slightly annoyed and jealous that he has been in bed for two days.

Only he doesn’t.

Instead, he says something that is so completely the opposite of what I was expecting that I’m stunned at first.

He tells me he must have a stronger, mutated version of the virus. Because there is no way I’d be able to have taken care of the kids if I felt even close to how he feels.

I don’t even know what to say at first.

And then I know exactly what to say.

So jokingly, I agree with him and tell him that indeed, he must have a mutated version and that he will surely die.

I laugh to myself while I get him water and some hot soup, knowing that he just wrote the ending to my next cartoon.

See? I can handle this.

————-

PS – he was totally fine this morning. We’re all better now!

PPS – if you liked this, then you’ll definitely, probably like my book:

HA! This is so hilarious, and I SO identify with every part of this (except I have one little boy instead of 2). Believe it or not, my husband has actually said almost this EXACT thing to me! “I must have a stronger version of it…I just can’t do anything. So tired.”

Riiiiight…mind if I borrow your puke bucket while I vomit from disgust?

I know how you feel. When I end up being sick, which isn’t very often, I still have to get things for “him” and the kids (the kids I can deal with), but it’s the “him” part that drives me batty because “He” doesn’t understand that you need time off as well, even for about 1/2 an hour to get some quiet time.

No rest for Mama! The first time I had the throw-up/poop virus after I became a Mama (during the week/without my husband), I called my mom and apologized for all the times we didn’t let her rest when she was sick. I don’t remember being so needy, of course, but I’m sure I was! You are too funny!

men are babies lol. anytime my husband is sick he lays in bed claiming he is dying. yet…when i get sick…i get maybe an hour nap and then i either have to help with the kids, or do stuff around the house or go to work…the worse time i was ever sick that i can remember is when i was 8 months preggo with my 2nd, i was already feeling like crap my whole pregnancy, i was high risk so i was seeing the dr twice a week (3 hour appts…lame) and i got some kinda bug, well my hubby still made me help with the kids, and the needy dog and everything else around the house…preggo…sick…then he got sick…and was dying lol.

it just makes us the stronger people…but they will never admit to that…

Sounds pretty much like what hit our house back in March… minus the nursing. And we alllll got it at the same time. Happy happy joy joy! And then it lingered for 10 days with my oldest boy. He lost 5 lbs, which was 14% of his body weight! We had to do a stool sample. Don’t. Wanna. Go. There. Again. He’s only now creeping back up on the scale, poor thing!

Ah yes! This is exactly it. Even the part where I’m hallucinating that there’s a small vampire bat clinging to my breast…

My husband has never tried the “stronger mutated virus” thing on me, but he still doesn’t seem to get that I’m operating the house and keeping the kids out of his way when I feel just as crappy as he does.

Tell you what – when you’re a little older, you’ll be happy (well, on some level) that your hubby isn’t afraid to feel like poo and let you know. I personally have the “stoic hubby”. So stoic, in fact, that he spent TWO YEARS (no, I’m not making this up) with severe sleep apnea before I finally nagged him to within an inch of his life to go to the pulmonologist and then the sleep study dude. And certainly – the apnea was among the worst they’d seen. They got him a CPAP machine and had it all fitted and he spent his first night with it.

The next morning, he woke promptly and said, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

This reminds me of the bug we all had in November. Set to drive 8 hrs. out of state to the in-laws’ for Thanksgiving, and my 2 yr. old pukes the night before. Hubby was like “Let’s play it by ear. If he seems fine overnight & in the morning, let’s go ahead & go.” I remind him that WE will very likely be next, and who wants to be 450 miles away from home with the stomach flu? Or worse yet, be stricken while ON the 450 mile drive. So we go. And the hubs & I have one gigantic poop & puke fest 450 miles away from home (missing glorious Thanksgiving dinner, of course), AND we spread the love to father in-law (which put him in the hospital) and, finally (on the day we left to go home), mother in-law, who had been kind enough to care for our 2 yr. old as we layed writhing & moaning. Good times! #@$%&! stomach flu!!

Mercifully for me, the kids are older and that special corner of Hell is in the past. Nevertheless, when I say that I might be getting sick my husband always comments that he is too. And it’s always worse than mine. On time I yelled “I am the only one who is going to be sick right now – NO ONE ELSE! This is not a competition!” He got the hint.

oh my gosh, each time there is a new post i think, “it can’t possibly be as funny as last time!” and then it is. bravo. on everything. i have two daughters, 3 yr and 2 yr, and a wonderful husband who just turns into such a wimp when he is sick.
thanks for the good laugh. could definitely use it today, i didn’t have puking/diarrhea but did have two very emotional/tired/tantrumy girls!

we just had it too. except at our house, we don’t do the whole, everyone sick at the same time. we have to wait a week with *eager anticipation* to see who the next victim will be. 1 gets sick and then exactly one week later, the next one gets sick. etc. etc. so we pretty much have to block out a whole MONTH of our schedule to being sick. not sure which is worse.

Omg, your cartoons terrify me! I am convinced now that I don’t know if I can ever handle being a mom. I am THE whiniest baby when I get sick. And my boyfriend wants to have 4 kids someday! Nope. No way. NEVER!!

Men just don’t handle illness well. We (by we I mean the ladies in my office and I. NOT my husband) refer to a man-cold as a “mold”. Nothing worse than the dreaded mold. So much worse than the little colds as women get.

hahaha! why is it that this is true for so many? lol my husband does the same exact thing. he is sure he is dying, that he has it worse than me and that he needs to be alone and rest. and it usually happens on the weekend for him too. lol just too funny.

Why is it that men refuse to understand that we feel as crappy (and sometimes more so) as them? We go through this every time a bug goes around and I swear to G that he’s lucky I haven’t smacked him upside the head with a cast-iron frying pan yet!

I strained my sacroiliac joint after having our second son in February (the joint that connects your hip to your spine), and have been seeing chiropractors and physical therapists ever since…hmmm isn’t it interesting that all of the sudden hubby’s back hurts too?!

Oh, and they never go to the doc when they’re sick with say…conjunctivitis that they bring home from work. Thus GUARANTEEING everyone in the house gets it…including the 5mo baby.

Be, honest. Seeing him writhing in bed did make you feel better, better than any amount of bedrest. Honestly, my husband is pretty good about helping out if I get sick. Yeah, I still get jealous when he gets to spend the day in bed while the kids wear me ragged.

Yup that sounds about right. I get sick? I work and I work, and work. Yes, tending to kids, cooking, etc all in between mad dashes to the bathroom and blowing my sore nose. DH gets sick? He calls into the office sick and sleeps…and sleeps…and sleeps until he finally emerges from his cave of slumber to declare his hunger, and how sore he is from sleeping. Please, honey, sit down while I call the waaaaaaambulance…after my back stops cracking that is.

If it’s any consolation, I’ve nursed while sick on the toilet before too. It’s great fun. 😉

This is EXACTLY what happened to my 7.5 Yo girl (also oldest) while we were abroad the 1st 1/2 of summer. She ate almost nothing X 2 days + diarrhea, and it killed me to see how much weight she’d lost. So thankful we are back in the US with Nana (my mom, who loves to cook)., & of course, crappy pictures to help me realize that no, I’m not a bad mother, yes, other mothers go thru this crap, & no, I’m not incompetent and bungling and stupid and wrong and all that nonsense.

arg i hear you…why is it the out at work person gets sick at the weekend? why do i, as the stay at home person get sick during the week? i once made my husband stay home from work so i could go to bed, pointing out that if he got sick during the week, he got to take sick leave and come home to bed. i, however, had no sick leave to take from looking after the kids. Ergo, he was my sick leave. i think he got the point.

You always make me feel so much better when you mention the husband part, “This is where he is supposed to have an epiphany of how amazing I am and what a hard week it has been for me and why I’m ever so slightly annoyed and jealous that he has been in bed for two days.

This is how it goes in my house as well.. but he says that he kept the kids while I just lated around and did nothing while he says Honey..what are you making for dinner..Honey he wont stop crying… Honey will you come get him im in the middle of a BG… Yeah World Of Warcraft…. and im the one sick…

Great post! I especially appreciated about being a lone wolf going off alone to die in the woods. That would so be me too. And the whiny-baby husband. Mine’s the same. I’ve got a three month old and mercifully, no one has been sick yet, but I know it’s coming.

hhahahahh thats such a good blog. SO TRUE! especially about hubby not having the ephiphany that wifey had the flu AND looked after the kids. I too get jealous of not having precious days in bed resting when I’m sick…. and they wonder why get resentful!

This is the theme at our house, too. I get sick, I take care of him and the kids anyway. He gets sick, he takes a 72 hour ‘nap’ and I am expected to care for him, the kids, and all of the stuff he volunteered to do for everyone else on the planet. We go shopping, he gets to look around and wonder at all the stuff and I just get to make sure the kids don’t hurl broken ‘pretties’ at all of the other shoppers. We move (which we did this week) and I get to watch the kids AND pack AND clean AND load the U-Haul AND cook and unload the U-Haul, while he complains about having to load the heavy stuff all by himself. He goes and takes a 45 minute crap, all by himself and I take a 30 second poo with a kid attached to my boob and one screaming for her turn. He has a quiet ‘chat’ to his assorted relatives for 3 hours and I scream at my dad over the top of my 2 year old clawing at me and yelling for random stuff because I’m never so interesting as when I’m on the phone. He goes in, at his leisure, and goes to bed while I stay up until god knows when and get 1094839483 drinks of water, read 56435083 books, nurse the 2 year old 29405809823 times, and then I fall asleep propped up on a pillow on the floor patting the 5 year old who swears she just saw Godzilla spider. Yea. You are my twin.

My husband has said EXACTLY THAT. I wanted to junk punch him! And what was about 36 hours for me literally was 6 days for him! (Plus another week where he just “didn’t quite feel normal yet”.) I get so frustrated, but what can you do? Oh, wait… that’s right… junk punch them! LOL

The mutated virus thingy: SO TRUE!!! I almost peed on myself reading this story….especially the part about the kids banging on the door yelling when you look the door trying to recoup, even if it just for an hour!!! ROFL, so funny!!

OMG!! Why is it that whenever we get sick the kids are extra clingy and we can seem to just get that time we need to recover? And when the hubby is sick its just sooo easy to go and lie down? I get a bit up tight when I think about it.

Ha! We had this exact scenario last week on “holiday.” Two year old daughter first, puked six times and couldn’t even keep water down (cue hysterical tantrums demanding water). She settled at around 3 am, at 5 am baby vomits all over bed, nurses, barfs again. Cue diarrhea for Mum. One day of “rest,” then Dad gets it.

THAT WAS HILARIOUS!!!!!!! I’m a mom of twins and this was us a few months back! My husband was reading it with me and we weere cracking up. My face is covered with tears from laughing so hard. THank you! Pics were perfect!

AT CHRISTMAS I HAD THE FLU, MY 18 MONTH AND 2 MONTH HAD THE FLU AND MY HUSBAND WAS DYING, HE GOT THE GLORY OF OPENING PRESSIES WITH THE KIDS WHILST I HAD SOME TIME TO PEEL THE VEG WHILST SITTING DOWN AT THE DINNER TABLE (TO CONSERVE ENERGY), HE THEN HAD A SNOOZE WHILST THE KIDS HAD A SNOOZE AND I CLEARED UP ALL THE WRAPPING PAPER AND PUT THE PRESENTS IN THE ASIGNED ROOMS, PUT THE TURKEY IN THE OVEN AND MANAGE TO MAKE A CUP OF TEA WHEN THE KIDS WOKE UP! MY HUSBAND CONTINUED TO SLEEP, I WAS HAVING SERIOUS SWEATS AND DELIRIOUSNESS AT THIS POINT, AND MY SODDING TEA HAD GONE COLD! THE DAY CARRIED ON LIKE THIS BUT I GOT THROUGH IT. AS WE BRILLIANT MUMS DO, SO UNDERSTAND THIS SKETCH, BRILLIANT!

Hysterical! We could be married to the same man (if it weren’t illegal). My husband has actually been known to say “Go, honey, save yourself!” when he’s sick and I swear I’ve heard the mutated virus line.

OK, I am so sorry, because I was laughing all the way through this. Not AT you. It’s just that I get it. I can’t even tell you how much I get it. Especially the hubby part. OMFG if he has the tiniest of colds he acts like he is dying. Do I get to rest and be in bed and take care of myself when I am sick? No. That is motherhood. There are plenty of great things about being a mom. This? Is not one of them. Glad to read you are all doing better. Here’s to a better week! 🙂

This is hysterical and oh so true. When my now teen age daughter was much younger she and my husband were sick at the same time–oh joy. I went to Dominick’s which in retrospect seemed liked Paris and he called–:MOan–I am so sick, I am throwing up” Me–“So? such compassion right??? What do you want me to do?” Him–” come home as I am going to choke on my vomit” Me–after rolling on the floor in the produce aisle–“No humans have a gag reflex and you cannot choke unless you are so drunk you have no idea where you are.” I come home and he insists I call the dr, whom I have known since I was a child. After the dr stops laughing–see it is contagious–he says the difference between my husband and my daughter when they get sick is that my then 8 year old daughter knows she will live, my husband is not so sure! So i completely understand! Too funny

I loved your story and I loved that you all got better. I have been there myself multiple times, but with only one little mama’s girl who is a force of nature. However. You know what. I don’t agree with Rena at all. I am so glad MY whiny annoying man who couldn’t handle a pukefest kicked himself out almost two years ago. Now, when I and my child are sick, it’s us. Just us. And the bucket and the towels. Now that she’s almost 6 and can usually make it to the toilet, it’s not that bad. I sure as anything do not miss the ridiculous BS that man got up to when he was sick. What a wussbag.

The first time my daughter had the stomach flu, was the ONLY time I’ve EVER been grateful to be sick too! My symptoms started only an hour after hers, so HE had to take care of her. All night. And the best part? I only threw up the one time. Then slept blissfully all night.

HE was up holding her puke bucket and denying her water (the on-call nurse said she had to be puke free for X minutes first, then a tablespoon of water every 5 minutes or something.) She was so young, she had very few words, but apparently for him it was a night of “Water please. Please Daddy please. Water. Waaaaah! Water please Daddy. Want water.”
I *gladly* let him rest when he got it a few days later. Even though I was the only member of the household whose hair got puked into. Twice.

Wow, what a miserable existence. When I’m severely ill, I don’t say, “I can handle it.” I explain to everyone that I am going to get rest because if something happens to me, then where will they be? I expect empathy and compassion from husband and child a like. Remember, you teach people how to treat you. Don’t be an exaggerated martyr or they’ll learn to expect nothing else.

OMG! It is sooooo true!!! The men drive me crazy!
My husband says the same things and a few times he did have it worse and then I actually felt bad about it, but man I can’t stand it… I literally grind my teeth when he acts like that when I just went through the same crap and had to deal with the kids all day! My father was the SAME way! I swear it must be a man thing! and I see this as the reason God made it so only women gave birth. LOLZ! I love all the men in my life, don’t get me wrong, but jeeze…. They really wouldn’t have been able to handle it!

It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud but you got me big time. My daughter just sent me a link to your blog and I am so going to follow this. You are just the funniest writer and I think you have a way of seeing reality spot on. I am amazed that this husband illness scenario is obviously a universal thing. Cheers, Wendy

Fantastic, gave me such a laugh. Can totally relate. Although this last time we both got sick at the same time. He did get to spend more time in bed than me & I even made the kids their breakfast while sitting on the kitchen floor because I couldn’t stand long enough.

This is so hilarious (in a painful kind of way). I love your crappy pictures – they are so true to my life too! Like someone else said, i can totally relate to the hallucinations. I have felt like my baby was draining the life out of me on numerous occasions.

LOL! This is all so spot on! And if it makes you feel any better, my 14 year old’s first sign that he’s getting sick has always been that he gets incredibly mean the day before, my 9 year old’s first sign of illness is that he is spastic and gets in trouble for doing impulsive things all.day.long. My 5 year old’s first sign? She can’t sleep. I don’t know which one is worse. 😉

totally the way it happens in our house…except that the kids AND I are usually sick at the same time and then hubby beats a hasty retreat to wherever leaving me alone and *then* comes back to lay in bed “dying” for two days after drinking all of the damn ginger ale.

Thank the lord that I found this blog and this post particularly! This made me laugh so hard. It is as though you are telling my life story! This needs to be a coffee table “board book” (so the kids don’t mess it up). Thank you!

Okay, now picture this “twist” . . .my 3 year old (then 2 1/2) starts the puking at about ten pm and throws up / poops / throws up etc. Until 4:00 a.m.
At 4:30, I get my first contraction.
All day in sleep deprived labour, which goes surprisingly well.
Midnight, I’m feeling “unwell” after four tuna salad sandwiches. You would NOT want to see even a crappy picture of me with a bowl at either end and the nurses freaking out. This goes on for five hours.

But I would send a pic of the next three days in hospital isolation, no visitors, the occasional nurse in a hazmat suit pushing a food tray under the door. The best part? My husband and his mutated version of the virus, stuck at home hanging over the toilet bowl, im surenwith my daughter hanging all over him and driving him nuts, as she was feeling fully re-energized by that time.

Why do husbands always think they get more sick than us?!?!?! I get a raging virus and hardly complain, he gets a sinus infection and can hardly get out of bed!!!

Hilarious post, once again! Love love love the illustrations! So many times while reading I have to throw my head back and laugh silently (cause the baby is sleeping), you describe life as a mom perfectly!

OK these may be “crappy pictures,” but they depict the way I felt last week perfectly. I had your pictures running through my head all week. I caught what my kids had and then I felt the way your drawing looks while laying in bed nursing and feeling so awful and just wanting space. I wanted to steal that frame for my FB profile picture. Well, the kids’ virus cleared up in a couple days, and mine morphed into mastitis! So it turns out my little one was just trying to do his part in keeping me healthy. And he helped clear it up too. Now my husband, who’s often the stereotypical man-baby when it comes to being sick (see man cold video posted twice above) just came down with it and is working VERY late tonight. So he doesn’t get to be “that guy” in my story this time. He’s being the tough, bless his heart. Oh and Rena, yes my husband is very reluctant to see a doctor about chronic issues, but is still usually a big baby when it comes to things like colds and fevers… just goes to me instead of the doctor. Because lets face it, we mommy types baby everyone and they all get rather used to it.

I think this blog is going to be my latest addiction. Pirate story is another one that’s sticking with me (that talking thing doesn’t clear up or go away.. at least not by seven and a half. I was hoping it was a girl thing.). Your crappy pictures are so not crappy. Thanks for sharing.

Ok I have a story for all of you, since you seem to have scared off the other men.

My wife and I have three children – 9, 2 and 2 weeks old.

I tend to be a night owl, so I often take the night shift with the baby (until 2-3 am or so, waiting until just after he eats to go to bed). Then I get up at 7. I can do this for a couple days in a row, then I need a night of “full” sleep (12-7 with kiddie wakeups in the middle)

My wife is chronically sick. She has some IBS like condition which isn’t quite IBS wherein she eats things and they disagree with her. Those things change on a monthly basis, just long enough to figure out the triggers before they change. She is also constantly tired, at least until it is time to watch Teen Mom or be on the computer talking to her friends for hours on end.

She was complaining once again of being so tired from getting up with the baby after one of my late-night shifts (she got up once at 5am) so I had offered to get the kids and let her go to bed early.

She went to bed before 7 (taking her computer up with her of course – real tired) while I took the kids to the park to wear them out for bed. Finally get the 2 year old down at 10. Pull another late nighter so that I can keep the baby downstairs and not disturb mom. Finally get him fully settled at 4am. Go up to bed, have to get up at 7am to run HER daycare, another story entirely. She comes downstairs at nearly 11am, complaining of how tired she is. Finally I get tired of hearing it and send her back upstairs to get another couple hours of sleep.

Turns out she had stopped taking her iron pills. When she had the baby, the nurse told her to stop taking them, not knowing she was anemic, and she just went with it when she should’ve known better.

To hear her talk to her friends though, she holds up the f’n world while I “play on computers” all day – I work in IT and am on call 24×7 as my company’s only IT worker.

So ladies, I know the games you play. So do your husbands. But whatever makes you feel better about yourselves…

loved this. Just discovered your blog, so funny. My husband has said the exact same thing about the mutated virus. I was in tears laughing so hard! He wanted to know what I was laughing so hard at, don’t think he saw quite the same humor.

For us this week it was the other way round. Kids gave hubby cold, he slept it off, then made it worse going surfing, then sneezed it all over the house before going to bed and sleeping it off. Now I am sick as a dog with 2 kids to parent – and he has his classes tonight so wont be home till after they’ve gone to bed.Sigh.

Oh my gosh this just made me laugh so hard that I actually have tears in my eyes. So funny because I’ve been there and it’s totally, completely true. And you have to laugh or you’ll go crazy. Thank you!

Nursing the baby but knowing you might have to puke or have explosive poop….done that.

My next picture would have shown me nursing the baby WHILE sitting on the toilet having explosive poop. I had to do that with my newborn a few months ago. God thought it would be funny I guess to give me a virus 8 weeks postpartum:) And the 4 year old would be standing there telling me to make sure I wipe!

Don’t anticipate the worst! The laughter trumps the icky stuff…you become a different person when you have to protect someone who is helpless……you will develop skills that seem impossible to you , now.

Also, reading Mom blogs, when you don’t have kids, may not be very useful to you….Moms have developed a sense of humor about the strangest things in life.

I have noticed this, too! Children grown and off and husband is so sick( with a runny nose?) that he can’t make it to the office. But I am a different person, now:” Oh great, you are gonna be home, today? I am leaving, for the day…and I will be sure to tiptoe when I get back ,late tonight.”

OMG we had the icky sickys mothers day weekend. I ttok care of one sicky then another sicky then I got it and the worst was when my husband got it. Never have I cleaned and disinfected so much in my life just to do it all again. But now I am a pro at getting puke and pee out of a mattress.

ok, so this was really funny. really funny. i was loving it. and then i choked myself laughing when dad gets it and gets all the silence he wants while having visions of death. i think we’re married to the same guy.

all I could think was Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Husband had a cold last week, three days off work in bed – zero help with housework or child or anything. I work from home so I cared for child, husband, house and clients. I catch cold. He goes back to work better. I take care of child, house and clients. Grrrrrrrrrrrr

I’m crying with laughter and recognition. A) I’ve had that happen horribly when my daughter was 9 months old and nursing like a fiend. The attachment while running to the bathroom…thought has been through my mind.

Also, the man woke up this morning with “a splitting headache. I didn’t sleep ALL night. I can’t find the NyQuil.” And he wonders why I’m annoyed finding the obvious bottle of NyQuil. Good golly!

Haha why is it that when men are sick, they are worse than the kids???

I have no idea how we’re going to manage from now on. I just got diagnosed with MS, which means I am now officially ‘sick’ for the rest of my life…. But that’s okay, I can still take care of the kids while a horrible illness slowly takes control of my body…and my husband dies of the common cold… *sigh*

The exception to the rule are nannies– the lucky ones who get to rejoice in the weird mom-ish humor, the little mom-like victories, oh, and the poop and puke fests! No kids of my own, but I SO appreciate Crappy Pictures.

I seriously have not laughed this hard in a long time. I can TOTALLY relate. Kids are now 14mos and 2.5yrs and this was our exact flu scenario last year – including of course the weekend mutated virus!!
Thanks!

This is perfect…do you have a spy camera at my house (our kids are actually similar ages even) two puking sicknesses ago though it did get really bad for me. It was when my youngest was like 3 months old and was nursing constantly. Everyone else got sick for like 1 day, I was puking and losing weight for 3…then I couldn’t keep ANYTHING down, not even my own saliva. I had to go to the hospital for IV fluids.
It didn’t dawn on me for a while that while normal people get a little dehydrated when sick they recover b/c they aren’t also making liquid for another human to eat and using up a ton that way.

At the risk of sounding cliche and repetitive, I will add my two cents worth here. I adore my husband and he is a great husband and father but when he gets sick I would do anything for it to be me and not him. Anything. Two things I want to know: (1) why does the husband always wait until the weekend to get sick? and (2) when does mommy get a sick day?! You are obviously writing truth. Keep it up! And thanks for the smile today!

Wow! This is almost exactly my last week and a half. Somehow the hubby got 2 full days in bed and me just one. (We do have in-laws in town so they took the kids one day thankfully!) But it does seem that in terms of rest we are on a 1:3 ratio. For every rest I might get he gets 3!!
Mothers are created with this extra battery and resilience! Thanks be to God for that!

HA!!!!! OMG! Seriously??? every stinkin’ time!!! I just about cried at the picture with you holding both kiddos, slightly dirty from the chaos =( But then the part with the hubby! FOR REAL!!! Husbands are such babies…. 100% Agree with every word! Ur awesome.

Oh dear. I remember last christmas I had to work a christmas party. That morning the hubs said he didn’t feel well, so I got a sitter for the baby and went off to work, so that he could be sick alone. Turns out that I was sick too. I had to work all day while puking in a public restroom. Then, my car broke down on a bridge, in the cold. When I finally got home, I asked him to get the baby ready for bed… to which he replied ‘but I’m sick’. I kid you not.

Just had to hold my hand over my mouth, such a loud laugh came out, and both kids are sleeping. Why am I laughing? Because EVERY BIT of this is true for me! The oldest was behaving SO bad and I was SO annoyed, and then at 4am he gets up and vomits ALL over the bathroom. (Which took me a whole hour to clean.) Husband gets up for work as I am finishing cleaning the bathroom, and gives me a look like he’s annoyed that I am staying up all night again…. I say I just got done cleaning up after our sick child, it took me an hour, he just says, “Oh.” So now oldest child is better, I am still in waiting mode to see if the baby and I are going to get it, and then husband gets sick, and can’t function. I get SO mad when he gets to lay in bed when he’s sick, and I NEVER get a sick day. It just reaffirms my belief that woman are stronger and the guys could NEVER handle being home alone with 2 sick kids, even for one whole day.

YES! this is how it is in my house too..except that my husband is always out of town when the virus hits! he’s home half the time so you would think he would have to help with half the viruses but nooooo…murphy and his damn law

man i feel that way every time my kids get sick too! i have two of them at least their old enough not to be breast feading! and im able to give them medicen thats the worse when u cant give them anything cuz there so little!!! but guys are all the same way cuz that is exacly how my husband act except some times he says that im not sick and i can deal with it…. cuz quote “i can feel it” that ur fine lol!!! i loved the story really made my day!!!

I am so relieved to know that my husband is not the only one who thinks he is dying EVERY time he gets sick. And usually I don’t get sick until after my husband gets sick. And while I might lay down for 1/2 a day he gets like 5 days. During the 5 days I still have to take care of our business alone and deal with all the customers who are angry because no one can do any work for them! Sorry vent over.

Oh how awful! What a fucked up situation! I’m never having kids. OR getting married. Just not doing it if this is the life ahead of me! And I thought it was bad enough lying in bed alone sick with no one to bring me soup or kleenex… but then having to deal with 2 clingy children?? Over the top depressing!!

I love these cartoons, i have to say. Having said that I have to side with the cartton dad on the last part (as a dad and microbiologist) Viruses do mutate and become more virulent especially after passing through children. Also, people do die from the flu. So her saying “its just the flu” and “my husband was in the background” really isn’t fair. Cartoon dads unite! 🙂

Too acurate, so very funny! In a must-laugh-to-keep-tears-at-bay kind of way. When my son was eight months old (still breast feeding pretty exclusively, and had never had a bottle), I got to have my gallbladder removed. I was allowed the day of the surgery to be on pain killers, then I got to switch to tylenol, so I could feed the Critter. Now, my husband is in the Navy, and was away at the time; but the nice government boys let him take emergency leave to “take care of” me. Riight. He tried, he really did; but he wasn’t used to being all Primary Caregiver-y, and kept forgetting. He’d reach out and grab Critter at the last minute (if I was lucky), saying, “No, buddy, don’t climb on Mommy,” just as Critter was beginning to climb up my torso to my boob. It was in the midst of this agony that I had the (granted, belated) epiphany, that I will never be allowed a sick day. Ever. Again.

Oh. My. God. I AM DYYYIIIINNNNGGG!!!!!! I hate the puke the most. I can deal with shit, I can deal with boogers. I can NOT deal with puke. I hate it so much that the first time we dealt with a family illness I decided I’d never deal with puke blankets again and we taught our triplets, then about 2 1/2, and our oldest, 4 at the time, how to puke in a bucket. We steal new buckets every time we go to the hospital, and it’s the best thievery I’ve ever partaken in. I would gladly serve the jail time to not have to clean puke off 4 different fabrics every time it came up.
Awesome post, especially the dying husband. :-p

Oh. My. God. I AM DYYYIIIINNNNGGG!!!!!! I hate the puke the most. I can deal with shit, I can deal with boogers. I can NOT deal with puke. I hate it so much that the first time we dealt with a family illness I decided I’d never deal with puke blankets again and we taught our triplets, then about 2 1/2, and our oldest, 4 at the time, how to puke in a bucket. We steal new buckets every time we go to the hospital, and it’s the best thievery I’ve ever partaken in. I would gladly serve the jail time to not have to clean puke off 4 different fabrics every time it came up.
Awesome post, especially the dying husband. :-p

Re-reading this after an year. And nope, nothing changes. This was my literal truth one year ago and NOW that she can speak – she came to me other day when I was sick as a dog (and more than a little surprised that she let my mom look after her) and says – you got 37?!?! (her codeword for fever as in 37 degrees Celsius). So you are being new-shensh!!! Yes dear, my inability to play with you in this condition is indeed a nuisance.

I know that you wrote this over a year ago, so I am super late commenting, but I just read it. I LOVE your crappy pictures and your stories and this one… OMG! So funny and so true….. I am not looking foward to when this happens in my household (shaking with fear)! Thanks for bringing a smile to my day!

YESSSSS!!!! I can so relate to this. Also…every time I get sick…my husband gets sick. Love him to death but it’s a real PIA sometimes. I remember vomiting for 10 hours straight once and I could hardly move from the hunched over the toilet position without vomiting more. My husband “had the same thing” and vomited twice slept the rest of the time. The next day I tell him I can’t believe what a horrible, sleepless night I had in checking on the baby and vomiting to which he replies “Oh me too”. Really???

I, too, am burdened with a wingy, selfish husband who views illnesses as a competition. It rankles more that, before the kids arrived, he was NEVER one of *those* men who got Man Flu (or any other malady), but now his frequent illnesses are more debilitating, last longer, and more life-threatening than anything the kids can come up with. If their condition deteriorates, he responds by moaning louder and more wretchedly. I am kept up all night far more by HIM than by my sick babies! I guess hubby’s attention-seeking behaviour is exacerbated by the fact that I utterly ignore his pitiful attempts to garner sympathy. I am incapable of faking TLC for a grown (I use that word loosely) man when I am the parent exclusively looking after two sick kids, houseworking AND working part-time, even when I happen to occasionally become sick myself. Bitter? Me???

What heartens me from these previous comments is that not only do most women have to endure similar spousal melodramas, but they appear to have accepted this juvenile behaviour with reasonable good humour and not gotten divorced over it! How do they achieve that mental acceptance?? Advice most welcome…

Well this looks just like our family with a small variation. When i’m sick IF my husband is home he will take the kids so I can sleep, he’s just astounded that i actually excpected him to ALSO wash dishes or pick up after the kids. When he’s sick he goes into hibernation and doesn’t mind in the least if I would like to leave the kids with him while i run errands or something, he just locks the doors turns on the TV and sleeps through anything! I pay dearly for leaving them. He also is great when they’re sick, I HATE puke and he never makes me clean it up. Love him 🙂

OMG…SO TRUE…SO, SO TRUE!! Totally get it….it is ALWAYS so much worse for them than it is for us!!!! YET they never seem to recognize the fact that we are running the house and taking care of kids while being this sick but when it happens to them it is expected that they are left alone to get better and they are ALWAYS “dying” although my husband has never used the “mutated version” comment to me either…LOVED your reaction and response…I almost just spit my drink out reading that part!! Good one!! 🙂

I would love to jump on this bandwagon and for years I did because my husband totally fell into this category. Unfortunately, he actually did learn about the rhinovirus, which basically does come down to them sucking at being able to have this type of illness in comparison to women. If you want to read more about it, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8598173/Man-flu-really-does-exist.html there it is!

Tears of laughter are literally streaming down my face…! The picture of you with crappy baby nursing while you’re practically comatose (or wish you were) almost did me in!! So sorry you (we) have to go through this but OMG you’ve described it so hysterically…

My Sis-in-law sent me this link today I needed the laugh. Yesterday, my husband was sick. He called in sick to work, for which he still gets paid. Today I wake up sick. But who do I call in sick too? nobody. I must still get up and feed the kids breakfast, send two of them off to school and then some how entertain the two younger ones. Oh yes and I am 7 months pregnant and today every kick is one of discomfort, every baby movement causes or increased the nausea. This afternoon is the town’s Christmas craft fair that the kids have been looking forward to and I have promised to take them to it. That should be fun. Oh the life of a mom.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much this is exactly like it is in my house. My whole family was sick for 2 weeks in January. My husband got 3.5 straight days in bed alone to get better. I got 2 hours. I ended up sick for an additional week since even when he was better, he couldn’t care for our children.

I’ve had a cold all week. Been very exhausted while dealing with one semi-sick toddler (she gave it to me) and an infant. Friday rolls around and now my husband has it to. He asks me how on earth I dealt with it all week. I pointed out that I simply had to, and that I’ve been doing it with two kids. Then he told me “Yah, but this stuff always hits me harder than you.” !!!! Men are such babies.

This is exactly how it works in our house!! Quiet time for mommy is usually interrupted by daddy yelling at the kiddos to be quiet. (And you’re right, much easier to just let them in bed) And when daddy gets sick, I swear he’s the identical twin of your husband. Mutation and all!!

Amber, you are literally describing my life RIGHT NOW. The kids are on the upswing, and hubby and I both caught it. I’m just barely starting to feel better, hubby is in the “just getting sick and moaning” phase. Literally. He was just moaning loud enough to rival me in labor. Ha!! And I was SOOO annoyed, until this particular entry popped into my memory, and I had to come find it and read it, and it cheered me right up. Heh. Thanks for reminding me of the hilarity in the midst of the yuckiness… and for making me and all the wives everywhere realize we are not alone. Dear goodness, MEN!!! The human race would be in serious trouble if it were up to them to reproduce!!! 😉

Argghhh! takes me back 20 odd years when I got back home from a business trip to find my poor exhausted wife sitting in her last nightdress drenched in baby vomit and tears (hers as well as children’s), with not a clean babysuit in the house as the washing machine had packed up.

OH MY GOODNESS! thats EXACTLY what my partner says when he gets any of our bugs, every time i hope for a bit of praise or respect that i am in fact superwoman, but no he has a stronger mutated version that only hits the very strong and thats why it took him X days longer to catch it!

HA! I just had to re-visit this post, because the plague just ran over my 4 year old and me this week. I went to bed around 8:30 twice this week, and my husband at 11 last night said, “well, I puked 3 times last night. I can’t believe you didn’t hear me and make sure I was ok.” I was a bit skeptical, because I SLEPT in the bathroom for close to 5 hours…… I think he was feeling left out of the “get outta my way, I’m going to puke or poop” fest.

I can’t remember how many friends I’ve sent this post to, when they are in the midst of the ‘house of plague’. It’s just so horribly accurate – and it helps to have something to laugh at when you’re clinging on to the toilet bowl!

Wow – this is our house to a ‘tee’! I laughed so hard at the utter accuracy of this situation…it’s funny now reading it but SO NOT funny when it’s happening! I was just telling my gf the other day how whenever I get sick, my husband ALWAYS, not sometime, but ALWAYS gets sick with the same thing only 10 times worse than mine ever was…like wtf? to spite me? suck it up sunshine! Love this blog!!!!!!

OMG – did you draw this at my house? You need to add a few more days for Dad to be in bed crying over the flu. Same thing here ladies. I caught that new norovirus, the Sydney strain I think it was, and nearly called 911 for myself. I did not. I waited. Puked from 6pm until 3 am the next morning. He gets me a bucket (at my repeated requests) because I too weak to walk now. Bucket has a crack in it, the bag he got had a hole, I am now covered in puke. I’m dizzy and puke soaked but have to get up and get two kids to school. He was alseep, right, because he had taken care of them all night for me. WAtching them sleep more like it. I drove them to class, which was scarry because I was dizzy. I could go on about this because it makes me blood boil.

Oh….next day my daughter comes down with it and while I am barely walking, I’m doing two bed changes because she can’t understand that we don’t puke laying on our backs, you have to roll over and hit the can. Where was he? He had the baby, yes, I think they were both sleeping. Baby didn’t catch it, thank heavens.

When I got to the part about your husband “dying” in bed, I was laughing so hard I almost cried! Our week was very similar, but the boys weren’t quite as sick. They had a cold, then the flu, then a cold again. My husband spent his two days in bed immediately after, and I managed to escape altogether! And oh yes, I’m pretty sure he got that mutant strain!

I pointed this out to my boyfriend who does exactly that. When he gets sick the world is ending, and he need every moment alone to rest. Heaven forbid our daughter starts to play loudly. I have to stop everything I am doing to take care of them both. And if I get sick? He’s got plans and needs to jet. I can take care of everything, right?

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This has been happening in our house all week. The best bit is when the hubby psychs himself into thinking that he’s got what we have. So he’s suddenly sick and taking our meds but in fact, it’s all imaginary – so so so annoying!

I have been known to drag out the air mattresses and have the upstairs kids sleep in the dining room on nights such as these… its a double fold win, 1. Less stairs for me 2. Tile floors = easier puke clean up.

I have just discovered this site (and book that I am now super excited about), and between this and the Crappy Crunchy Scale, I have determined that you are writing my life. This EXACT thing happened in my house two weeks ago. Except for 5 hours of my puking I was at work, managing a security crew for Lions Tailgating. Super fun. Love this.

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Mmm hmm. I am pretty sure that for the first 15 years of our marriage, he would PRETEND (I think) to be sick when I was, and then of course he was ALWAYS sicker than me, so I still had to get him things.
One time, I was very sick with a high fever and sore throat that lasted several days. He was, of course, also sick at the same time, but he had a tummy bug, so of course I had to get him things. On the third day of a high fever, I believe I may have complained a little about having such a high fever for so long, and he said it was impossible. That if I’d had a 103.5 degree fever for three days, I’d be dead.
But here I am. Not dead. Amazing.
Oh, and I had mono. Which he COULDN’T get, because he’d had it as a child. Ha!

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Why don’t your children leave you alone when you are unwell? Why don’t they help you carry the shopping when see your hands are full? Why do you bring them up having no respect for you and your needs whatsoever (as it transpires through your pictures)? How can you expect them to have respect to others in the future if they grow up believing their own mum is their slave?
I don’t get it. How do you think they’ll benefit from that?

This just happened to me this week!– it’s just sooooo unfair!– next time I get sick I am going to check into a hotel for two days!
That will do it, I won’t come home until I am better, see how he handles kids and sickness.

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